bury good.

You'll Treasure These Treats

July 01, 1997|By Lori Bonnie, Tribune Staff Writer.

While waiting for the fireworks to light up the sky this weekend, spread out your blanket and break out the munchies. We found a few recipes for some cool snacks in "The Pirate Cook Book" (DK Publishing, $10). You won't have to spend a lot of time toiling over these creations with the shortcuts we came up with. How's that for Independence Day?

Titanic treats

Lemonade

Lime juice

Melons (cantaloupe, honeydew)

Mini-cookie cutters

Dixie Cups

Disposable appetizer forks

The book shows how to make these adorable frozen treats with floating fruit cut out in nautical shapes. Well, we're not too crazy about using knives. And we needed more than a treasure map to find those quaint frozen-bar molds, and our store didn't carry Popsicle-type sticks. So here's what we did:

We sliced the melon (check with an adult before you go using knives), then cut it with little cookie cutters in star and moon shapes.

Since we didn't have the molds, we used Dixie Cups instead. And instead of Popsicle-type sticks, we found some disposable (wood) appetizer forks at the grocery store.

We stuck each appetizer fork into a fruit piece, then placed the fruit piece, with the fork still in there, on the bottom of the Dixie Cup. That way when we added the liquid, the sticks were anchored. We plunked a fruit piece and fork into each cup (you can make dozens of them with just a quart of lemonade and a cup of lime juice), poured lemonade and lime juice (some together, some separate) into the cups, then popped them into the freezer.

They didn't look as yummy as the ones in the book, but they tasted fine.

The book calls them Booty Bundles. We call them ... Sooty Bundles

Slivered almonds

Raisins

Gummi candy

4 oz. semisweet chocolate

2 tablespoons heavy cream

1/2 cup (one stick) of butter

8 graham crackers

Foil

Muffin pan

The book makes these look like little treasure bundles that you can tuck in the fridge for a sweet, hidden treat. And, in the book, when you unwrap the foil, they really do look like jewels in a treasure chest. But, you guessed it, ours looked nothing like that.

Here's probably why: We absolutely refused to use candied fruit. Yep, candied fruit reminds us of the dreaded holiday fruitcake. Besides, we couldn't find it at the store at this time of year. So we substituted the candied fruit with gummi candies. Apparently, chocolate sticks to gummi candy (and doesn't stick to candied fruit), so our bundles were all brown and resembled something a dog might bury.

Again, they didn't look as yummy as in the book, but they tasted pretty good.

To make our Sooty Bundles:

Crush the graham crackers to bits. Add a handful of the almonds, gummi candy and raisins to the crackers.

Melt the chocolate and butter together (we nuked ours for a minute,took it out, then stirred). Add the cream to the melted stuff.

Pour the chocolate mixture into the cracker mixture.

Line muffin compartments with tin foil squares (let lots of foil hang over so you can scrunch it later). Spoon the cracker/chocolate mix onto the foil.

Pop the tray into the fridge. Go chill while your recipe chills. After a few hours, you can scrunch the foil over the "treasure" and tie it with yarn or string. Toss 'em in a cooler, take to the beach and share with pals.